


i bruise easily (so be gentle when you handle me)

by MercuryPheonix



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Assault, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Injury, M/M, because coronavirus has robbed us of soft things, coda for 1/12/20
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27864602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryPheonix/pseuds/MercuryPheonix
Summary: "The more involved Callum became in all this, the closer Callum sank into his world, the more wounds Ben found himself soothing with caresses and kisses. Bruises smattered across time, across their relationship, bunching closer and closer together until he could barely tell them apart."When Callum comes home from work with a fresh bruise on his ribs, Ben doesn't know how to deal with the nagging guilt that this is all somehow his fault.
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Comments: 3
Kudos: 58





	i bruise easily (so be gentle when you handle me)

**Author's Note:**

> This follows on from the ending of 1/12/20, in which Callum was punched in the side/ribs by DI Thompson (more commonly known as DI Dickhead). Because I doubt very much we're going to get to see Ben respond to the bruise, what with the gap between episodes and the lack of touching in place because of coronavirus being a massive homophobe.
> 
> The title is from 'I Bruise Easily' by Natasha Bedingfield, because I was a teenager in the early noughties.

_"anyone who can touch you, can hurt you, or heal you_  
_anyone who can reach you, can love you, or leave you  
_ _so be gentle"_

It wasn’t that the bruise was particularly big, or particularly angry-looking; just a dull stain, spreading outwards from a central point, like purplish-bluish dye dropped gently on the surface of a pond. Ben had seen a hundred others like it. Thousands even. But there was something about seeing it webbed across this particular skin, stretched out across this particular ribcage, that made a queasiness churn in his stomach.

He sat up in bed, leaning forward towards the source of his unease. There was a gentle hiss as he pressed the pads of his fingers against it; he couldn’t hear it, his processor already sitting on the bedside table, but he could feel the sharp intake of breath tightening Callum’s diaphragm.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

Callum swerved his torso away from Ben’s touch, yanking his sleep shirt over his head and dragging it down to cover the bruise.

“Callum…”

“Some guy elbowed me as I was trying to get him in the car,” even Callum’s signs were tired as Ben flicked his gaze between his lips, illuminated by the bedside lamp, and the somehow monotonous movements of his hands. “It’s just a bit sore, it’ll be fine.”

That roiling feeling under his ribcage began to grow more violent as Callum clambered into bed, unable to miss the ever so slight wince that crumpled his face as he manoeuvred himself to lie next to Ben. The urge to reach out and touch was instinctual, subconscious, automatic.

“Cal…”

“Ben,” Callum firmly, but gently, caught his hand as it fluttered over the material covering the injury. “Can we just…not? I’m tired.”

He didn’t bother to sign the last part, his face close yet closed off, the words readable but the expression indecipherable. Ben opened his mouth but quickly closed it again, letting his arm go limp so that Callum could raise their hands to the pillow between them, linking their fingers together, caught in the crossfire of their silent gaze.

Ben could feel the hypocrisy burning inside him as he swallowed back the urge to ask more. Who was he to press for details of every scrape, every bruise, when he’d made wandering exhaustedly into Callum’s arms with a face full of scabs an almost nightly occurrence?

It had taken longer than he’d expected for Callum to stop being quite so insistent in his questioning, but it had happened eventually. The ‘what happened?’ melted into rolled eyes and gentle touches, the ‘who did this?’ became ‘what am I going to do with you?’, and the loud concern quietened to the softer worry of hands and lips.

But that was _him._ It was different. Callum was the good one, the sensible one, the one who held him back and brought out whatever goodness could still be scraped from his heart. Ben was the one people hated, the one who couldn’t help but be dragged into those dodgy corners of the world, the one who people judged and hated and punched.

But now…the cuts and bruises covering his face when they found him cold on the warehouse floor, the bloody bruising on his knuckles at his brother’s wedding, the gash in his lip to make Kush’s escape ‘convincing’…more and more and more, building, faster and faster until one injury has barely faded before the next one appears.

The more involved Callum became in all this, the closer Callum sank into his world, the more wounds Ben found himself soothing with caresses and kisses. The thought of it lurched in his gut. Who cares if it really was some pickpocket on the street who decided to give as good as he got? It was another in a long line of ways that Callum had been hurt since they started this. Bruises smattered across time, across their relationship, bunching closer and closer together until he could barely tell them apart.

It dragged with it memories of another face, lying cold in a coffin, a face that should have been beautiful and smooth but was now marred forever, battered and bruised and never getting the chance to heal. 

_Because of me._

Sudden images flooded him: Callum’s skin blossoming out into angry bruises with every brush of Ben’s lips, the touch of Ben’s fingers smarting and cutting, every second that he didn’t pull away hacking further and further into flesh, draining it of it’s colour until it was grey and lifeless and buried away in a box six feet beneath his feet, his fingers scrabbling at the dirt to try and find Callum, to dig him out, to bring him back, because he couldn’t do this, not again…

Ben caught his breath, reigning in his thoughts as best he could as he tightened his grip on Callum’s hand.

“Turn over.”

Callum’s eyebrows knitted together, but he didn’t argue – Ben felt a tinge of loss when he let go of his hand in order to turn, quickly filling the void a moment later as the expanse of Callum’s back became available for him to press against. He wrapped his arm around Callum’s waist, careful not to brush the bruise, pretending for now, for him and for Callum, that it wasn’t there at all.

God, he loved this. Almost as much he loved being the one tucked under Callum’s arm, burrowed into the warmth as his boyfriend’s larger frame wrapped around him like a comfort blanket. Either way around, they just _fit_. And to look at them you wouldn’t even know it. You’d think them mismatched and odd and incompatible, on so many levels, and yet his knees slotted neatly tucked behind Callum’s, his face buried in the short hair at the back of Callum’s neck, and everything just settled into place like this was good, it was okay, it was where they were meant to be.

Because he could leave good bruises too. The blu-ish dots from gripping fingers; the mark sucked gently into his collarbone; imprints of teeth pressed just hard enough for a gasp without breaking the skin. The kind of bruises that make you blush when people point them out in the morning, that advertise to the world that you’ve been thoroughly fucked by someone who adores and appreciates every single inch of you.

Good bruises. He could leave them. He _could_.

He pressed a gentle kiss to the nape of Callum’s neck, testing the water - featherlight as if the skin might blister if he dared push any further. And Callum tilted his head slightly, pressing into it, relaxing ever so slightly whilst still holding that tension in his shoulders – reminding Ben of the things he’s holding back. He wanted so very desperately to kiss whatever it was out of him, to hold him and touch him until all the walls went down and all the secrets spilled out.

But he couldn’t. Not tonight. Not when he had Callum’s warmth held against him. Not whilst Callum’s hand pinned his own against his chest, clinging tightly to him over the rhythm of his heart. Not whilst Callum trusted him not to press further, asking no more from him that what Callum had given so willingly over the past year.

“I love you,” he whispered gently. He didn’t have to hear it to know that Callum said it back.

Because it wasn’t just words: it was the feelings and the sensations and the overwhelming churning bubble of _them_. It was the way that they had struck into each other like trucks, imprinting and scoring into each other’s flesh with the force of the impact. It was the way that those bruises adorned the both of them, mirroring and matching in tenderness. 

Bruises that neither of them wanted to fade.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Please do leave me a note to let me know if you enjoyed this weird little brain secretion of mine :)


End file.
